One smoke walk in the middle of Djola’s seventh year in exile, Samina put icy fingers on his lips. “You know the cause of the poison and a cure.” Djola gaped at her. “You wrote a scroll of spells long ago.” She used the voice not to be argued with. “You still whisper that spell in dreams.”

“I can’t remember my dreams.”

“Do what you need to do, then come to me, at Mount Eidhou.”

“If I knew what to do, I’d already be free.”

“To be free, you live for change, not revenge. Conjure the future as if it were past.”

He gasped. “To dance Xhalan Xhala for Pezarrat I should see the gold dust or turquoise his plunder brings?”

“That’s one future.” She put icy fingers on his heart. “You say we do this to ourselves. There are other futures. See these as well. And offer void-smoke to crossroads gods.”

Smokeland was what might be, what could be, yet never very far from what was happening right now. Xhalan Xhala brought Smokeland to the everyday and the void too, the lost possibilities. Before they could speak more, Djola was rushing across the light bridge, swirling through a comet’s icy tail, his mind reeling, his heart quaking. He came back to himself shivering and sweating on his bunk.

The sick bay was empty. Vandana and Orca had left his breath body unprotected. Somebody could have killed him or worse, poisoned him and made him a spirit slave. Djola jerked up. Vandana and Orca were spies, but loyal to him, always on the lookout for assassins. Something was wrong.

His Aido bag, kora harp, and mountain of books had disappeared. Vandana’s bag sat next to him in the sunlight from a porthole. The blades Orca had confiscated from Djola circled the bag, tips pointed outward. A scroll and Djola’s latest maps for Jena City and Bog-Town lay on top of the bag. A message was scrawled in Lahesh on the scroll.

If the way is open, run.

I should have left sooner, but didn’t want to abandon you and Orca.

Now you go to home and I have good to do elsewhere. That is living.

I am too sentimental to face farewell.

I hold your Kora harp and Aido bag. This Lahesh bag, your bag now. A library.

Keep it safe. Add to it. Pass it on.

Remember, these are good people on the wrong ship.

Dochsi, you do love the world.

Dochsi—the Lahesh no to negativity. His heart pounded; blood sang in his ears. Aside from Weeds and Wild Things, Orca and Vandana were the only ones living who touched him inside the fortress he’d made of heart and mind. Djola hid the knives in boots, sleeves, and belt, then snatched up bag, scroll, and map. He tore through the ship, searching for his friends.